Recently, more vehicles with sideslip measurement apparatuses are provided to assist drivers. It is effective to prevent accidents especially in case of snow or rainy weather by estimating a sideslip at the initial stage of a sideslip by using a sideslip measurement apparatus and supporting the drivers' operation.
As a conventional technique for estimating a sideslip, a technique for calculating a sideslip angle using an acceleration, a yaw-rate, a vehicle velocity and a steering angle as measured signals (a vehicle traveling wheel slip angle detection apparatus) is known (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. Tokkai 2000-25599, hereinafter referred to as “reference prior art”).
According to the sideslip measurement apparatus described in the reference prior art, the steering angle is used as a measured signal for sideslip angle estimation. However a large mechanism is required to detect the steering angle by the disclosed technique in the reference prior art. Therefore, although sideslip measurement apparatuses is desired to be mounted on vehicles, they are seldom mounted on the general purpose vehicles.
Drive recorders are becoming popular to provide drivers with advices for safety driving or identifying the causes of an accident by recording the driving histories.
It can be considered to mount a conventional sideslip measurement apparatus on a drive recorder, however the derive recorder itself necessarily becomes complicated because the aforementioned mechanism for steering angle detection is needed to mount such an apparatus on a vehicle.